[The touch is unexpected but not unwelcome. It's the first attempt at comfort she's allowed since they've come up to the base. She laces their fingers together and closes her eyes briefly.]

I have often wondered this.

[Because her recruits and her friends give her hope but she does not always allow them to help her. It is her own failing, not theirs, that makes her incapable of true contentment.]

But I have always found hope in the people around me, in those who fight without commanders, without rulers. Who fight simply because they need to. I find it in my friends and in people I care for every day.